Google compliance report reveals 61,114 content pieces were removed in Nov

The Indian Government's IT rules that came into force in May 2021 mandate large digital platforms - with over 5 million users- to publish periodic compliance reports every month.

In their Monthly transparency report tech giant Google has revealed that the platform had received 26,087 complaints from users and removed 61,114 pieces of content based on those complaints in November. 

Google had received 24,569 complaints from users and removed 48,594 pieces of content based on those complaints in October, while 3,84,509 pieces of content were removed as a result of automated detection.

The report added that 3,75,468 pieces of content were removed in November as a result of automated detection. 

Google, in its latest report, said it had received 26,087 complaints in the month of November (November 1-30, 2021) from individual users located in India via designated mechanisms, and the number of removal actions as a result of user complaints stood at 61,114.

These complaints relate to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on Google's significant social media intermediaries (SSMI) platforms, the report said. 

"Some requests may allege infringement of intellectual property rights, while others claim violation of local laws prohibiting types of content on grounds such as defamation. When we receive complaints regarding content on our platforms, we assess them carefully," it added. 

The content removal was done under several categories, including copyright (60,387), trademark (535), circumvention (131), court order (56) and graphic sexual content (5). 

Google explained that a single complaint may specify multiple items that potentially relate to the same or different pieces of content, and each unique URL in a specific complaint is considered an individual "item" that is removed.

For user complaints, the "removal actions" number represents the number of items where a piece of content was removed or restricted during the one-month reporting period as a result of a specific complaint, while for automated detection, the "removal actions" number represents the number of instances where Google removed content or prevented the bad actor from accessing the Google service as a result of automated detection processes. 

Google said in addition to reports from users, the company invests heavily in fighting harmful content online and use technology to detect and remove it from its platforms. 

"This includes using automated detection processes for some of our products to prevent the dissemination of harmful content such as child sexual abuse material and violent extremist content. 

"We balance privacy and user protection to: quickly remove content that violates our Community Guidelines and content policies; restrict content (e.g., age-restrict content that may not be appropriate for all audiences); or leave the content live when it doesn't violate our guidelines or policies," it added. 

Google said automated detection enables it to act more quickly and accurately to enforce its guidelines and policies. These removal actions may result in removing the content or terminating a bad actor's access to the Google service, it added.